Wednesday, August 19, 2015

24 Years On, Russia has Not Moved beyond Putsch as Chief Means of Leadership Change

Paul Goble

Staunton,
August 19 – Two centuries ago, Madame de Stael observed that Russia was an
autocracy mitigated by the occasional assassination. Now, 24 years to the day
after the failed August 1991 coup that accelerated the demise of the Soviet
Union, it is clear that Russia has not moved beyond the putsch as the chief
means of leadership change.

Twenty-four
years after that putsch, Dmitry Shagiakhmetov writes, a whole generation has
grown up with doesn’t remember those events; and “a new generation of bosses
has appeared in the Kremlin.”But
despite that, the Russian opposition politician and commentator says, Russia
has not managed to escape the vicious circle of dictatorship and putsches.

In a
commentary on Kasparov.ru today, he rights that the circle is once again
closing and “Russia is confidently heading toward its latest version” of the
same kind of leadership change that the coup plotters in 1991 sought to impose,
having like the Bourbons learned nothing from the mistake and stupidities of the
past (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=55D358C88973A).

Both the
Russian people and the Russian elites are trapped in this vicious circle, and
both will have to work long and hard to escape it. So far, however, the people
have deferred to the elites most of the time rather than insisting on genuine
democracy and freedom and consequently the elites have little reason not to
rule in the way that they do.

But such
rule inevitably produces splits within the elite, and those divisions offer
occasional opportunities for the population to break through. But all too
often, the population settles back down in its place, and the elites settle
back down in theirs, continuing the pattern of the past rather than breaking
with it as some hope and others fear.

“The main
lesson of all the Maidans, putsches, and revolutions is this,” Shagiakhmetov
says. When the people wins a victory, “its leaders must not wrong away. They must
not celebrate the victory.” Instead, they must “remember every day several
simple demands which the public square made.”

“The
authorities must be sane,” he says. “They must not flaunt their wealth if there
are hungry people in the land.”Moreover, the authorities “must be subordinate to society and not forget
their place.”That is impossible “without
free media, without real courts subordinate only to the Law.”

And that
means in the current context, he says, that Russia must “get rid not of Putin
but Putinism,” the latest incarnation of the cycle of dictatorships and
putsches. Otherwise, the commentator warns, “there will be yet another
generation of dragons.”

Escaping
that will be hard and require a lot of work, Shagiakhmetov says. People will
make mistakes and have to correct them, and they will have to keep their eyes
on the main goals and not be distracted by trifles, something that those in
power are always only too happy to throw up as a way of maintaining their
power.

After the
August 1991 putsch, however, “this again did not happen” with Russians. “Perhaps
it will happen in Ukraine. There are chances. But there is no other way forward
except to try and try again. And only by so doing will it be possible to
realize the dreams of a normal country.”

And “only
then,” he concludes, “will all the victims and all the efforts be not in vain.”

Among the
other comments on this anniversary, one is perhaps especially instructive
because it focuses not on the elite divides of 1991 but on those of 1916.
Again, on Kasparov.ru, Yevgeny Ikhlov argues that the arguments within the
elites now resemble those which took place in the months before the 1917
revolutions (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=55D361293D54B).

The
Moscow commentator makes his point by suggesting an exchange between “moderates”
then and now and the “hardliners” again then and now.

The
moderates said and say: “You idiots, you are provoking a revolution, ‘senseless
and unlimited. You are destroying not only yourselves but the entire civilized
stratum!”

The
hardliners reply: “You cretins, you are rocking the boat by your play with
populist pseudo-revelations and outrageous criticism! What are you playing at
with all your childish talk about coats, watches and yachts?! You are
destroying not only us but also yourselves, you ‘Russian Europeans,’ and you
haven’t figures out that the people will take into account not only our palaces
but your cottages!”

The
moderates in turn respond that they only want those in power to behave in a
less challenging fashion and ask the hardliners to take note of the fact that
they “are trying not to repeat the errors of the intelligentsia of 1917 and
1989!”

To which
the hardliners reply: “you babblers don’t understand that the entire legitimacy
of the powers rests on the Putin myth;”
and that if it is undermined, everything will be swept away.“Our president has not gone made.” What he
says about the situation in the country is the only thing that can be said: “only
such séances of psychotherapy on television saved the country last fall from
complete panic.”

Such
exchanges of moderates and hardliners within the elite are entirely plausible,
and they are yet another reason why 24 years after August 1991, Russia still is
talking about the possibility of coups and has not found a way to survive
without the occasional putsch or without the authoritarian regimes in between
such events.